


Sweet Tooth

by mylifeissocoollike



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Muggle, F/M, Jily Trope Fest, KIND OF I GUESS, childhood best friend au, football player James, harry is mentioned, jily, photographer lily, sirius and mary are mentioned, sports AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7301335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylifeissocoollike/pseuds/mylifeissocoollike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily and James were best friends growing up, but when he moved away and they drifted apart they thought that would be the end of their friendship. But fate has a funny way of working out, and Lily can’t keep herself away from the brownies in the grocery store.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweet Tooth

Lily had gone to the grocery store to buy tea. That was it. Really . She had no idea how so much ice cream had gotten into her basket. Perhaps she had picked up someone else’s by mistake.

Who is she kidding? She wants some comfort food and this was what was happening. It was all her stupid sister’s fault. Having her as a bridesmaid in her wedding and making Lily watch what she ate in order to fit into that ugly purple dress. Lily couldn’t pull off purple. Petunia knew it too. The wedding is finally over now and Lily is flat-sitting for the newlyweds. She doesn’t know why she had agreed to it but the deal was made now so she may as well stuff her face full of the chocolate she’s been craving for months.

She rounds the corner of another aisle, thinking that if she finds some brownies she can make a kick ass sundae, when she sees him. It takes her a moment to recognize the bloke who’s standing with two different packages of cookies in his hands, trying to decide between them. He goes for chocolate chip. That was always his favorite.

“James?” she says his name before she can stop herself.

Her childhood best friend whips his head around and gapes at her. The first thing she notices is that he got new glasses. Then she wants to slap herself because _of course_ he did- it’s been twelve years for heaven’s sake.

“Lily?” he breaks out into a grin and she lets out a breath she had been holding, the fear that he didn’t recognize her melts away. The next thing she notices is when he throws his cookies into his basket, the rest of the stuff inside is _healthy_. She tries to discreetly position her basket full of sweets behind her.

“Uh, hi,” she stammers as he makes his way toward her. Maybe it was a bad idea to say something. Because now she’s noticing how tall he got and that he lost the baby fat in his cheeks and is looking, well, _fit_. Not that she didn’t already know that he’s rather gorgeous now, since his face had been plastered over every damn sports magazine for the past three years. _“Best footballer of the decade!”_ her coworkers at the newspaper always said.

“Hi.” He grins and she wonders if he still laughs at puns, is allergic to early mornings, and can make farting sounds with his armpit.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks. There’s amusement in his hazel eyes and Lily remembers how unfair she used to think it was that his eyes consisted of gold, brown, green, grey, blue and every other damn eye color while hers were just green. He used to tell her green was his favorite color to make her feel better.

“Well Mum and Dad moved back here once my career picked up and I could afford my own place, so I’m just visiting them. They’re out tonight though, some fancy party Dad’s colleagues are having so I’m trying to work out dinner for myself.” He holds up his basket and Lily thinks it looks like he is planning to make curry. She tries to ignore the growl of her stomach.

“Yeah I heard they moved back. My parents go to theirs for dinner sometimes,” she says. She’s not really sure what to say next. What do you say to a man who used to push you down the slide, whom you haven’t spoken to in years but still know everything about because of how famous he is becoming.

They chit chat as they make their way toward the registers. James smiles at her ice cream choices and she hopes he doesn’t think that all she does these days is lead a sad life, eating ice cream alone on a Friday night. Because she’ll have him know she’s never _alone_ eating ice cream, her roommate Mary always joins her. So there.

As they leave the store, Lily senses a reluctance thickening in the air and wonders if she is the only one who doesn’t want to part ways. When they reach the road that Lily knows branches off toward the Potter house, James stops.

“That’s my street,” he says.

“I know, it used to be mine too.” She teases him and almost sees him start to blush before he looks away.

“Used to be?”

“Well I moved into the city to be closer to work a year ago. I’m just here for a week to flat sit for my sister.”

“Ah, Petunia. How is she?”

“Married to a man who’s terribly boring.”

“Pity, she could’ve used someone to balance out her complete lack of desire for anything fun.”

Lily snorts and the mischievous smile that appears on James’ face sends her into full on giggles. She has to admit, he has hardly changed and it is feeling easier and easier to talk to him as though they were never apart.

“Well, I better get going,” she says when she finally composes herself.

“Do you have to?”

She looks up at him and grins. She’s missed him. Why hadn’t they kept in touch? They were ten when he left and even though they had promised to write each other, Lily had gotten and sent less than five letters. At that age, when it was so easy to fall into new friendships and forget the people who were far away, they didn’t realize what they were going to miss out on.

“Well I do have to feed Petunia’s cat,” she says.

“And what are you going to feed yourself? Just ice cream?” He nudges her grocery bag and quirks an eyebrow at her. She rolls her eyes in return.

“Ok mom, I’ll have you know that I deserve even more ice cream than this for putting up with that wedding.”

“How about I come with you and make this curry for both of us?”

Lily nods almost instantly. Why would she pass up an offer to eat curry made by a Potter? _“My mum is teaching me to cook!”_ he always said proudly whenever he had to leave the playground early to help with dinner. She was always jealous of the amazing food his mom made.

They make their way back to Petunia and Vernon’s flat and catch up. Lily tells him about her job at the newspaper and how she loves taking pictures for them. She sheepishly mentions the pictures of Stonehenge she sold to National Geographic a few months back and he promises that he’ll get a copy. Then it’s his turn to be sheepish and he asks if any of the pictures she’s taken for the paper are of him. She turns bright red and nods. She’s taken plenty of pictures of him at his games- she loves photographing sporting events. The players moving at such fast speeds make getting the perfect shot a thrill.

James cooks for her and she feeds the cat. The cat is actually a decent creature and she thinks that maybe she will look into adopting one. Mary might like one too, she certainly responds to questions about pets often enough in her advice column for the paper.

They eat the curry he made. It’s delicious. Just like Mrs. Potter’s but different enough that Lily can tell he’s been living on his own long enough to develop his own tastes and skills. It’s almost attractive that he’s become such a good cook. _Almost_ , being the key word of course.

What’s _very_ attractive though is the way he runs his hands through his hair. Had he always done that? And how he laughs at her joke about the cat being the pur-fect roommate. Honestly who laughs at such a lame joke? _Just the most amazing guy ever_ , she thinks.

 _Fuck_.

Inviting him over was a bad idea. He’s doing dishes now and his long sleeves are pushed up and his forearms are so toned it’s hard to keep from touching them. His laughter is bouncing off the walls and tickling her sides so that she has to laugh too. It’s contagious. Everything about him is. She wants to absorb it all and keep it here forever.

They end up sitting on the couch, facing each other with their legs tangled up in the middle and passing one of the pints of ice cream Lily bought back and forth.

“Is your favorite color still purple?” he asks after they finish the ice cream. If she were eating still she would have spit it out that very instant.

“Hell no, my favorite color isn’t purple! It looks horrid on me, when did I ever say it was!?” she shouts, causing James to burst into laughter.

“Remember those wellies you used to wear all the time? They were purple and you insisted that that was your favorite color and you were never taking them off,” he says.

“That was when we were like eight, I have since come to my senses.”

“Hardly,” he snorts and she tries to kick him but her feet are too close to his hands and he ends up tickling them instead. Curse him for remembering her weakness.

“Well what about you then? What’s your favorite color now?” she gasps between laughter and finally pulls her feet away to tuck them under herself.

“Green.” Lily looks at him and cocks her head.

“Still?”

“Still.”

They fall asleep there. A mess of tangled limbs and blankets. Lily wakes up with her head on his chest and his hand on her waist and she wonders if this is what it’s supposed to feel like when you’re reconnecting with an old friend. Because she’s pretty sure it feels like she’s falling in love.

* * *

 

Two days later they get coffee together and James pulls out a gossip magazine that has his picture plastered on the front. This isn’t new to Lily, although the pictures she takes of him are when he’s in action on the field and not when he’s leaving a strange flat early in the morning.

“James Potter does walk of shame,” he reads dramatically. And they laugh and Lily promises that she didn’t tell any of her fellow photographers where he was. The look on his face when she says that is the most confused expression she’s ever seen.

“I know you would never do that, Lily,” he says and takes her hand. She’s pretty sure she’s blushing and wants to kick herself in the shin. They used to hold hands all the time as children.

He’s blushing too, of course and in their embarrassment both of them look down at their scones and don’t notice that maybe, just maybe the other one feels the same way. They also don’t notice the photographer across the street.

* * *

 

“This one has your ex’s picture on it too,” Lily slaps down the magazine the next day. They’re on the front cover holding hands at the café and there’s a small rectangular image of a model James used to date added in the corner. Lily notes that they chose a picture of her looking unhappy as if _they_ are the specific reason.

“Ugh, we dated for like three months and it was two years ago!” James rolls his eyes goes back to check the oven. He’s making some sort of casserole tonight. She tries not to think of the fact that he’s come over and cooked for her every night since they ran into each other at the store.

Instead, she wonders if she knows what she’s getting herself into. They’re just friends aren’t they? And they both have important jobs to go back to at the end of this week so nothing will really come of this. She should just enjoy seeing him, making him laugh, eating his food, and watching bad movies on Netflix with him while she can. Maybe at the end of this, they’ll occasionally text each other and meet up for drinks. Really that’s all that will come of this.

* * *

 

They keep seeing each other. They’re both back in Manchester and they’re together almost every night. They laugh at themselves for not getting together sooner and decide to blame their parents for not forwarding their new addresses. Neither of them wants to admit that they had thought childhood friendships could never be rebuilt after twelve years. Neither of them wants to admit yet that what they’re building isn’t just friendship anyway.

They both travel a lot. Him for games and her for work. About two months into this strange new friendship Lily is asked to go to a game for the paper. She takes pictures of the crowds and players and enjoys herself immensely.

She gets a perfect shot of James scoring the winning goal. _Of course_ he scored the winning goal. She rolls her eyes over the hype that will come from that but mentally reminds herself that she should thank him. A lot of magazines will pay good money for an action shot of the winning goal.

As Lily watches the team cheer, she sees James break away from the center of the ring they formed around him and run over to her.

“Great shot,” she says when he’s right in front of her.

“Yeah?” He is smirking and running a head through his hair. His face is flushed and Lily wonders if he’s blushing. Even though she _knows_ it’s from the exertion of playing, she hopes that he’s blushing. Really, it’s a little of both.

“I’ll show you the pictures I took tomorrow if you still want to get dinner,” she says. She knows that after a win like that he’ll be with the team most of the night. So she changes their dinner plans from that night to the next. It shouldn’t surprise her that he actually seems disappointed to no longer be spending the night with her. But he _does_ seem disappointed and something like hope lifts in her chest.

“Well, I wanted to see you tonight but I guess if I _have_ to wait until tomorrow I better do this now,” he says.

Before Lily can ask what he means, he leans over the barrier that keeps back the press and kisses her. She’s faintly aware of some cameras flashing and a crowd cheering, but everything outside of this dims. Everything that isn’t James, doesn’t matter. His hands are cupping her face and it’s so gentle and caring that she wonders how she’ll ever be able to be touched by anyone else. His lips are chapped and his breathing is ragged but honestly it’s the most perfect kiss she’s ever had. All she wants is to press her body closer to his but all she can do with this damn barrier between them is grip his sides and hope he never lets go.

* * *

 

“They’re calling us a power couple now,” James says at breakfast two years later. Lily shakes her head in disbelief. They’ve just come home from their honey moon to the Grand Canyon. Lily always wanted to go there to take pictures and James was more than happy to go anywhere she wanted. Pictures of them arriving at the airport were everywhere now but honestly Lily was just happy to be home. She had been starting to worry that leaving their friend Sirius to flat sit wasn’t the best idea and that he might end up accidentally shaving the cat or something.

“I believe our parents called us that first,” Lily jokes as she pours more milk into her tea. To think this all started with going to the store to get tea. Although, if she’s going to tell the story completely honestly it was because she couldn’t control her sweet tooth and had to look for some brownies.

And that’s what she says a year later when they’re talking to Mary. They wanted to do an interview and who better to give this exclusive to than her best friend, who’s now writing for a major magazine in London.

“We used to be best friends when we were little and then we ran into each other at the store because I couldn’t control myself and was looking for some brownies to make a sundae with.”

“I’m eternally thankful for her sweet tooth,” James teases as he presses a kiss to her forehead.

“You won’t be grateful when I’m sending you out at two in the morning over the next four months because I’m craving chocolate.”

“Of course I will. Because you’re having my baby and I’m the happiest person in the world.”

“Wait just a goddamn second, what did you just say?” Mary asks. A giant grin is forming on her face as she looks back and forth between her two friends.

“I think it’s going to be a girl,” James says and Lily hits him.

“Don’t write that in your article Mary, we don’t know the gender yet… but it’s going to be a boy.”

* * *

 

Four months later every magazine boasts the news: James and Lily Potter Welcome Son, Harry James.

**Author's Note:**

> I never planned to make James an athlete and certainly not a soccer player since I know hardly anything about it. Also, having to call it football was weird.


End file.
